Today’s Vox Coverage of Trump, Comey, Russia, etc.

I was scared of the FBI with Comey in charge. I’m more terrified now that he’s been fired: A human rights advocate on why Comey’s firing is disturbing. I am no fan of recently fired FBI Director James Comey. As part of a team documenting human rights abuses in the US, I’ve seen too many examples in recent years of overreach and lack of transparency by the agency, and aggressive pursuit of greater FBI powers by Comey himself, to feel otherwise. Yet in the aftermath of his firing by a pr…

Trump: James Clapper said I have no Russia connections. Clapper: No I didn’t: One of Trump’s favorite defenses just got shot down. President Donald Trump has tried to tamp down the growing controversy over his campaign’s ties to Russia by deliberately misrepresenting comments from James Clapper, formerly the nation’s top spy. On Friday, Clapper began pushing back — and added his voice to the chorus of officials and lawmakers from both parties who worry that there’s more st…

Does Trump secretly record the Oval Office? And 8 other questions Sean Spicer can’t answer: The purpose of a White House press briefing is for the media to learn new information from a spokesperson with first-hand knowledge about the president. But Sean Spicer’s press conference on Friday was much more useful for learning what Spicer does not know — or says he does not know — about President Donald Trump and the goings-on of the White House. Here are nine questions that Spicer said he c…

Republican voters don’t seem to care about Comey’s firing: President Donald Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey has been discussed in the press as the modern-day Watergate scandal, heightening pressure for an independent investigation into Russia’s alleged ties with the Trump campaign. The first polls to ask about Comey’s dismissal shows public opinion isn’t great for Trump. But if there’s good news for him, it’s that the firing is — at lea..

Trump’s blackmail threats and the latest in the Comey scandal: The president admitted the Russia probe led to Comey’s ouster. The fallout from President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to fire FBI Director James Comey is getting weirder by the hour. In just the past 24 hours, Trump revealed that he’d asked Comey directly several times over the past several months about whether he was under investigation (which, uh, you really aren’t supposed to do); openly ad..

When Trump flounders, he plays the tribal politics card. Here’s why that’s terrifying: It is striking President Trump picked Thursday, May 11, to 1) sign an executive order establishing a commission to investigate voter fraud ; and 2) have Attorney General Jeff Sessions announce that federal prosecutors will seek maximalist penalties for criminal prosecutions. Future historians may note that these actions came just two days after Trump’s sudden and unexpected firing of FBI Director…

Trump officials are leaking to reporters that they aren’t supposed to leak to reporters: White House officials keep leaking internal conversations to reporters detailing that they’re being ordered not to leak internal conversations to reporters. On Thursday, Trump spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders expressed her frustration about the leaks that keep appearing in the press about President Donald Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey. Her remarks wound up in the press almo..

Jeff Flake isn’t comfortable with the Comey firing, but he’s not doing anything about it: New details about President Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey are unraveling quickly. Republican Sen. Jeff Flake still doesn’t know what to make of the decision, and he wants the American public to know he’s wrestling with the news. “I’ve spent the last several hours trying to find an acceptable rationale for the timing of Comey’s firing,” he tweeted on Tuesday night after the new…

A forgotten lesson of Watergate: conservatives may rally around Trump: For Americans worried about the state of our republic, Watergate analogies can be a comforting salve. If FBI Director James Comey’s firing is President Donald Trump’s Saturday Night Massacre, then impeachment hearings should be coming down the road — perhaps soon. But even if Comey’s firing leads to a widening scandal, some of the lessons of Watergate should worry Trump opponents more than soothe…

Here’s the “certified” letter saying Trump has no Russian debts or investors: Why can’t we see the tax return? In lieu of disclosing his actual tax returns, Trump asked two tax attorneys, Sheri Dillon and William Nelson, of the law firm Morgan Lewis to write a letter detailing Trump’s income from Russian sources. The letter, dated to March, was given to reporters on Friday. According to the letter, Trump owes no debts to Russian persons or entities, there are no “equity …

We overanalyze Trump. He is what he appears to be: There is no correct Theory of Trump. Why did Donald Trump fire FBI Director James Comey so abruptly, in such humiliating fashion , with no plan to communicate the reasoning behind the move and no list of replacements ready? It is the question that launched a thousand think pieces. Even Trump surrogates were not prepared to answer it. Sean Spicer literally hid in the bushes (sorry, among the bushe…

Don’t miss Trump’s incredibly telling non-answer on financial ties to Russia: A simple question that deserves a real answer. Donald Trump’s admission that he had the Russia investigation on his mind when he fired FBI Director James Comey has, naturally, attracted the lion’s share of attention out of Thursday night’s interview with NBC News’s Lester Holt. But he made another telling admission in response to a fairly straightforward question from Holt about financial connect…

Impeachment of the president, explained: The history and logistics of trying and removing the president from office. President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey has raised questions about whether he was trying to obstruct an investigation into his campaign and associates. And this, not even four months into Trump’s term, has led to chatter about impeachment — the process by which a president can be charged with “high cri…

Trump called Stephen Colbert a “no-talent guy.” Colbert’s response: “I won.”: Colbert responded to the president’s insult with barely restrained joy. Donald Trump declared this week that Stephen Colbert is a “no-talent guy” — and Colbert couldn’t be more thrilled. “The president of the United States has personally come after me and my show and there’s only one thing to say,” Colbert said during his May 11 show, before breaking into thrilled giggles. “ Yay .” Colbert’s Late…

Trump changed his story on Comey literally midway though Sen. Inhofe defending the old one: Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) boarded the tram underneath the Capitol Thursday afternoon clutching a Snickers wrapper and a theory for why President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. By the time he returned to his Senate office, Inhofe would see that theory undercut — by the president himself. “I look at the White House and they say, ‘We’ve had a guy [Comey] who Democrats have been demandin…

Trump is threatening to release secret Comey “tapes” and cancel press briefings: Friday morning, President Trump took to Twitter to launch a series of bizarre complaints — beginning with the allegation that the entire Russia issue was fabricated, veering into threats to cancel the White House press briefing, and culminating with a claim that he had secret “tapes” of his conversations with fired FBI Director James Comey. All in all, it was a worrying series of statements from…

Picking a good FBI director won’t fix anything: Firing Comey under false pretenses has fatally compromised the bureau’s independence. The country is obviously better off if James Comey is replaced as FBI director by someone who is good at running the FBI — it’s a large and important government agency that carries out many crucial functions. But in terms of the immediate obstruction of justice crisis kicked off by President Donald Trump’s decis…

Senate Democrats are trying to force disclosure of documents about Trump’s team and Russia: Somewhere in the US Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence rests a series of records. No one will say publicly what’s in them, or even whom they mention. But the senators investigating the connection between Russia and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign are dying to get their hands on them. This week, Senate Democrats tried using one of their few points of leverage…

Only one of these Trump-Comey timelines can be true, but either way, it’s a problem: The White House communications team and Donald Trump have conflicting stories on the series of events leading up to the firing of FBI Director James Comey. And it comes down to one thing: When did Donald Trump decide to fire Comey? If what Trump said in an interview on Thursday is true, that means he actively sought cover for firing Comey, the man leading the agency investigating the Trump campai…

Trump has now admitted he fired Comey because of the Russia investigation: “When I decided to just do it I said to myself, I said, ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.’” Many Republicans — from White House staffers to members of Congress to conservative pundits — have been insisting for two days now, despite widespread reports, that President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey had nothing to do with Comey’s investigation…

Why the FBI might wage “war” on Trump — and how they would actually do it: It’s not often that you hear members of the FBI threatening to go to war with the president. But that’s where we are after Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey. “[Trump] essentially declared war on a lot of people at the FBI,” an anonymous FBI official told the Washington Post . “I think there will be a concerted effort to respond over time in kind.” There’s every reason to believe t…

Attention, liberals: Comey deserved to be fired, and the Constitution is just fine: The hyperventilation in Washington is unjustified. The decision of President Donald Trump to fire FBI Director James Comey is generating a fevered, near-maniacal response that is out of proportion to the asserted wrong. There is certainly much grist for the mill , much of it related to the animosity that Trump is said to bear toward Comey, which proves once again that on all matters of state, thi…

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